Sunday, May 16, 2010

I can’t hear anything and other news

I am now strep throat free! Wah-hoo! The antibiotics did their thang and as of Thursday my throat was no longer planning my slow painful death. However, my each ache is still alive and kicking. I went to the doctor on Friday to see what could be done, and the verdict is not a whole heck of a lot. The antibiotics for the strep will wipe out the infection for my ear as well, but it will take over a month for all the fluid to drain and my hearing to go back to normal. Sigh. At least it is just in one ear and not both…

Anyway, on Saturday Bill and I hung out with some friends of ours who had been stationed in Alabama for the last 2 years, but have now been transferred to Fort Lewis. Yay! We also got to meet their adorable baby girl, who I believe is 7 months old today. She is super cute… but, I didn’t bring my camera so no towhead baby photos for you.

Today we worked out in the yard for a bit. We started by planting two new (free!) rhododendrons in the back yard. My classroom assistant’s daughter just bought a house  these had recently been put in her front yard (I’m thinking the previous owners were trying to boost curb appeal.). Anyway, she was not a fan of these two rhododendrons, so they made their way to our house. If I was buying them myself I probably would have gone with another color, but free is free and I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. You see, they are a deep red, which I think is very pretty, but I have been sorta-kinda planning on making my garden colors be purples, pinks, and yellows. That being said, I already have a bunch of red in the front garden with the anemones, tulips, and what not. Who knows if I will be able to stick to a color scheme in the garden or not. IMG_5080I’m assuming that they won’t really bloom a ton this year since they were transplanted in the middle of flowering. We planted them underneath a bunch of low hanging crisscrossing power lines. Ah, the joys of having a transformer behind your house. We want to eventually landscape the back yard and add some trees and more perennial flowering bushes, but we will have to plan according to the wires. We figured the rhododendrons would work well under the lower lines since with time they can get pretty large, but never tall enough that they would cause issues with the power lines.

I also planted the rest of the seed packs I had laying around the house. Some of them were expired by a year (or more!), so it is even more of a crap shoot than usual as to if anything will actually grow. I put some petunia seeds (not expired) along with some lobelia seeds (expired) into containers to give some color to the back yard this year. IMG_5083 Of course at the moment they are just look like pots filled with dirt, but keep your fingers crossed that they will be bursting with pink and purple petunias before too long!

We also put in 2 ferns and 2 hosta bulbs in the back yard. Both are shade loving plants, and we really don’t have much shade (what with the lack of trees and all), but we put them underneath our already established (possibly original to the house?)rhododendrons, so hopefully it will be shady enough for them to thrive. I also sprinkled some seeds around them so who knows what will happen.

The rest of my (expired) seed packs were strewn about the front yard, in the new-ish planting strip and in the old flower patch. The planting strips are a thing of mystery. One side is has a gazillion starts in it and I am very perplexed as to what they all are. Some are obviously the seeds and bulbs I put there, but the majority of them are all the same mystery plant and I am dumbfounded as to what that might be... IMG_5073 We decided to let them be and see what happens. I might be that in the not so distant future I will have a ton of weeding to do, but hopefully not and they turn out to be some gorgeous flower.

The other side looks more like what we were expecting. Some things are making their way up, but mostly it still just looks like a dirt strip. I’m fairly confident that it will look pretty and colorful this summer. I added a few more packs of seeds though, just for good measure.IMG_5074I was happy to see that our Spanish lavender which we planted last year has come back. It is looking full and healthy and the bees are buzzing with delight.IMG_5075 Our (formerly) mysterious irises are also in bloom. Last year there was a few leaves, but no flowers. For some reason the majority of the irises were covered with a big old rock when we moved in. Of course, we moved that bad boy out of there last year, but of course by then it was too late for the irises to shoot up any buds. So, I have been waiting and waiting to see that color our irises would turn out to be. I was really hoping they wouldn’t turn out to be a hideous brown color (that my mom had in our yard when I was growing up. Seriously, mom, what was up with that?). Well, as luck would have it they are not hideous at all! In fact they are a very pretty light blue-violet. IMG_5070 And they smell delightful.

The last of the planting of the day was some cute pink petunias I picked up while grocery shopping. IMG_5078 I know the containers are not very exciting. And, I know, you can see dirt smudges on them. But, my plan  is the petunias will get so big that you won’t even be able to see the pots at all! Good plan, huh?

5 comments:

  1. Nice, I didn't notice the decorative metal(?) thing in front of the stairs before. Course we didn't enter from the front before either.

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  2. It's not metal... I think it is rubber or plastic of some sort. It was there when we bought the place.

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  3. As you said, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. The brown iris bulbs were freebies from one of Gram's friends. Not my favorite color either.... Ralph's decorative water dish looks nice against the back fence. Hopefully, it will also stay cleaner not under the shrubs.

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  4. Yes, that is a good plan! Sound exactly like something I would do! :)

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  5. Sometimes the kind of fertilizer or soil will change the colors of flowers! Your garden will be so beautiful as it grows.

    Karena
    Art by Karena

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